Test Bank for Entrepreneurial Finance 6th Edition, Kindle Edition

Test Bank for Entrepreneurial Finance 6th

Edition, Kindle Edition
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CHAPTER 2

DEVELOPING THE BUSINESS IDEA

True-False Questions

T. 1. For ventures that first get to market or create intellectual property rights, it’s
common to price new products or services at high markups or profit margins.

F. 2. Lifestyle firms are growth-driven in terms of revenues, profits, and cash

flows and also performance-oriented as reflected in rapid value creation over
time.

T. 3. “Salary-replacement” firms provide their owners with income levels

comparable to what they could have earned working for much larger firms.

T. 4. An entrepreneur may start a number of different types of businesses,

including salary-replacement firms, lifestyle firms, and entrepreneurial firms or
ventures.

F. 5. “Entrepreneurial ventures” are firms that allow owners to pursue specific

lifestyles while being paid for doing what they like to do.

F. 6. Entrepreneurial ventures emphasize survival and providing an acceptable

living for their owners with growth being a secondary goal.

F. 7. A sound business model is a plan to generate investor interest, make profits,

and grow asset investments.

T. 8. A sound business model should provide a plan to generate revenues, make

profits, and produce free cash flows.

F. 9. Mark Twain said: “Like I tell anybody, if you fail to plan, you’re planning
to fail.”

T. 10. Best practices of high-growth, high-performance firms applied in the

marketing practices area include “developing new products or services that are
considered to be the best.”

10

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 Chapter 2: Developing the Business Idea 11

F. 11. Best practices of high-growth, high-performance firms applied in the

marketing practices area include “preparing detailed monthly financial plans
for the next year and annual financial plans for the next five years.

T. 12. Best practices of high-growth, high-performance firms applied in the

financial practices area include “preparing detailed monthly financial plans for
the next year and annual financial plans for the next five years.

T. 13. Best practices of high-growth, high-performance firms applied in the

management practices area include “assembling a management team that is
balanced in both functional area coverage and industry/market knowledge.”

T. 14. Business opportunities, because they exist in real time, have a relatively
narrow window of opportunity to become a successful business venture.
However being the first to market does not guarantee success.

T. 15. Ideas that are said to be “ahead of their time” are too early to become
viable business opportunities for the inventor or innovator.

T. 16. Once conceptualized, a new idea should be examined for its business
feasibility.

T. 17. A SWOT analysis is an examination of the strengths, weaknesses,

opportunities, and threats to determine the business opportunity viability of an
idea.

F. 18. A SWOT analysis focuses on strengths (S), worries (W), opportunities

(O), and treats (T).

F. 19. A “venture opportunity screening” is the same thing as preparing a

business plan.

T. 20. A SWOT analysis should consider as potential strengths or weaknesses

whether there are unfilled customer needs and the extent to which intellectual
property rights exist.

F. 21. A SWOT analysis should consider the extent of existing competition and
the likelihood of substitute products or services as potential strengths or
opportunities.

T. 22. Venture opportunity screening involves assessment of an idea’s

commercial potential to produce revenue growth, financial performance, and
value.
12 Chapter 2: Developing the Business Idea

F. 23. A venture with a low score on the VOS Indicator should always be
abandoned.

T. 24. The VOS Indicator is useful in assessing the commercial potential of a

venture, but should not be used as the sole tool to determine a venture’s fate.

T. 25. The VOS Indicator provides both qualitative and quantitative information
about a venture’s commercial potential.

T. 26. A venture opportunity-screening guide, called the VOS Indicator, is used

to determine potential attractiveness of venture opportunities as business
opportunities.

F. 27. Asset intensity is the net after-tax profit divided by total assets.

T. 28. One way to describe asset intensity is the dollar investment in assets
needed to generate a dollar in sales.

F. 29. Business changes resulting in higher net profit always increases ROA.

T. 30. The compound rate of return that equates the present value of the cash
inflows with the initial investment outlay is called the internal rate of return
(IRR).

T. 31. Bootstrapping refers to the process of minimizing resources such as the

need for financial capital and finding unique sources for financing a new
venture.

F. 32. Free cash flow to equity is the cash flow from producing and selling a
product or providing a service.

F. 33. In a typical business plan, the section covering the management team does
not need to disclose the expertise and experience of the management.

T. 34. The non-financial option available to managers as the venture progresses

through its lifecycle is known as real options.

F. 35. The process of moving from entrepreneurial opportunities to new

businesses, products, or services begins with ideas, then moves to the
preparation of a business plan, and finally ends with a feasibility study.

T. 36. A well-designed entrepreneurial venture bins with an idea that survives an

analysis of its feasibility and results in a business model/plan.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Tallants of Barton, vol. 2
(of 3) : A tale of fortune and finance
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
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will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Tallants of Barton, vol. 2 (of 3) : A tale of fortune and

finance

Author: Joseph Hatton

Release date: May 20, 2023 [eBook #70822]

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: Tesley Brothers, 1867

Credits: Sonya Schermann, Debrah Thompson and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TALLANTS

OF BARTON, VOL. 2 (OF 3) : A TALE OF FORTUNE AND FINANCE
***
 THE
TALLANTS OF BARTON.
A Tale of Fortune and Finance.

BY
JOSEPH HATTON,

A “B S : L S ;” “A S ,”
., .

“The wheel of Fortune turns incessantly round, and who can say within
himself,
I shall to-day be uppermost?”—Confucius.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE ST., STRAND.
1867.

[The Right of Translation is reserved.]

 LONDON:
BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
 CONTENTS.

CHAP. PAGE

I.--ENTER THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF

1
VERNER

II.--CONTAINS IMPORTANT REVELATIONS, AND

21
TERMINATES FATALLY

III.--“ARCADES AMBO,” BUT FLOURISHING

34
NEVERTHELESS

IV.--IN WHICH RICHARD TALLANT VISITS BARTON

HALL AGAIN, AND ARTHUR PHILLIPS COMPLETES A 50
GREAT WORK

V.--THE TWO TEMPLES 64

VI.--MRS. DIBBLE AND PAUL SOMERTON JOURNEY

80
TO SEVERNTOWN

VII.--IN WHICH MR. SHUFFLETON GIBBS PRESENTS

92
HIMSELF IN ANOTHER CHARACTER

VIII.--WHAT ARTHUR PHILLIPS SAW THROUGH THE

108
MIST

IX.--IN WHICH AN IMPORTANT WILL IS READ 123

X.--ARTHUR PHILLIPS HAS A HAPPY GLIMPSE OF

135
THE FUTURE

XI.--DURING THE WINTER 145

XII.--DISCOURSES CHIEFLY OF UNREQUITED LOVE 159

XIII.--THE FIRST OBSTRUCTION IN A CERTAIN

175
SCHEME OF AMBITION AND REVENGE

XIV.--OF HAPPY DAYS IN SPRING 193

XV.--FINANCE AND “FINESSE” 212

XVI.--IN WHICH A CERTAIN LIEUTENANT GETS INTO

DEBT, AND TRYING TO GET OUT AGAIN FALLS 230
WICKEDLY IN LOVE

XVII.--CONTINUES THE LIEUTENANT’S ADVENTURE 243

XVIII.--A PICTURE FOR ASMODEO’S CLOAK 255

XIX.--“THE COMING EVENT” 274

 CHAPTER I.
ENTER THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF
VERNER.

So swiftly did one incident of change crowd upon another at this period
of the lives which we fear we are but faintly sketching, that it seemed as if
Fortune had arranged all the concomitant circumstances that were
culminating in these few eventful days of autumn.
Fortune, “the great commandress of the world,” had already played
strange pranks with those two charming girls at Barton. Until lately their
destinies had flowed on smoothly and in peace. They had grown up side by
side,—one the mistress, the other the companion and friend,—and until
now there had been no jealousy on either hand—until now Amy Somerton
had been content with her lot. She had brooded over her lowly birth, in
those hours when she had loved and dreamed about her love for Mr.
Hammerton, but she had only seemed to look up the higher to her love. She
had seen him as miners see the sky, far above her, and with hardly a beam
of hope animating the thought that some day he might take her hand and
raise her up, as the king selected the beggar maid in the poem.
In those sunny days of doubt and hope and maiden admiration, she had
been happy in her own quiet, dreamy fashion, contented with Lionel’s kind
words and delicate attentions. He had never, perhaps, told her in so many
words that he loved her, but there was that in his voice and manner, when
he addressed her, which led her to believe that he took delight in her own
undisguised admiration. He had signified his pleasure in her society in a
thousand different ways, and for the time being this was enough to satisfy
the heart-craving of Amy; but content to be humble, her pride nevertheless
rose up against attack, with all the fierceness of injury. On that morning
when she learnt that Lionel had left the country without one word at
parting, she knew as if by instinct that her love was cast off. He must have
known some time before he left that he was going, and yet he had not even
deigned to say so. She knew how weak she had been; she knew how little
she had striven to hide her love. Lionel Hammerton knew that she had
loved him with all her heart and soul. She had not cared to disguise her
feelings. She would have given up all the world for him, even like Goethe’s
Marguerite. There was no sacrifice she would not have made, if sacrifice
had been needed, at the feet of Lionel Hammerton; yet he had treated
herself and her love with contempt and indifference.
You have seen how her spirit rebelled against the slight which she
imagined was the assertion of rank and fortune over lowly birth. Her whole
nature seemed to have undergone a change—a change in which pride took
such full possession of her heart, that there was no more room left for love.
She who had sat and simpered over Tennyson like a love-sick, romantic
girl, dreaming of Cophetua, and Camelot, and A. H. H., now thought of
nothing but schemes of revenge and ambition. If she were only in Phœbe
Tallant’s place, what would she not do to assert the rights of lowly birth and
beauty! She envied her friend at the moment with a hot and a bitter envy,
and hated her own more lowly origin.
It was the morning after her return from London. She sat at her bedroom
window at the farm, commanding a long reach of the carriage-drive to
Barton Hall. The park trees were standing in golden circles of leaves; the
great elms were shaking down their last autumnal tributes to mother earth;
the old roots were wrapped in soft carpet-like coverings of red and brown
and gold; the long carriage-drive was fringed with the same remnants of the
dying year, and anon a gust of wind would sweep along the road and carry
the leaves high up into the air, like flocks of birds sporting in the sunshine.
But Amy saw only desolation in the scene; she saw all her best and
holiest aspirations tossed about the world like the fallen leaves. Whilst she
sat there musing and fretting by the window, there entered the drive a
carriage drawn by four horses; as it gradually approached, she saw that
there were footmen behind, and that the equipage was splendid.
“As there are no fairies and magicians in these days,” she said to herself,
“that is not Cinderella’s coach, and I am not Cinderella. Why, it must be
Earl Verner’s carriage: his brother is going to call at Barton Hall. I will go
there too.”
And as she said so, the carriage swept along, with the leaves flying about
the horses’ heads and sporting round the carriage wheels.
 Amy was right. This was Earl Verner’s carriage, and his lordship was on
his way to pay Mr. Tallant a personal visit. Once, and only once, previously
had he honoured Barton Hall with his presence. He was of a quiet, retiring
nature; a luxurious and learned nobleman, who cared more for rare books
and works of art and old pottery than for anything else.
He was scarcely fifty years of age,—a lithe, supple man, with brown,
curly hair, and evidently a quiet, luxurious fellow, who liked to have his
own way and take things easily. He had never been married, and never
would marry, he said, because it would bore him. It would be impossible, he
had often said, for any woman to be happy with him; she would be jealous
of his pictures and pottery in less than a month. And then the going into
society, and fulfilling those duties of property which people talked about,
and laying yourself out for being everybody’s friend but your own:—no, he
could not marry; he would leave that, he said, to his brother Lionel.
It was through this brother Lionel that the Earl Verner called at Barton
Hall this second time. Mr. Hammerton had, it appeared, not only invested
largely himself in some of the bubble concerns of the day, but he had
induced his lordship to divert considerable sums of money into the same
channel; and now that his lordship’s steward had large demands upon him
for calls, Earl Verner said to himself, “I will go over and see Tallant—pay
him a visit of condolence, and kill two birds with one stone.”
So his lordship sent in his card, and followed it into Mr. Tallant’s library,
where he found the merchant engaged at his desk.
“Ah, Mr. Tallant, how do you do?” said his lordship, advancing with
opening hand.
“I hope your lordship is well?” said Mr. Tallant. “May I offer you a
chair?”
Earl Verner seated himself, and rubbed his hands familiarly before the
fire.
“Mine is rather a selfish visit, Tallant,” he said. “I fear you must have
thought me an unneighbourly fellow; but, you see, I am fond of quiet, and I
rarely pay visits. Perhaps I take too little interest in the county. However,
you will believe me when I say that I was grieved to hear of your domestic
trouble—deeply grieved; for I knew you had set your heart upon making
that young fellow a sort of intellectual Crœsus, and——”
Here his lordship hesitated, seeing that the subject was painful to Mr.
Tallant.
“We will not talk about it, Mr. Tallant, but pray accept my sympathy; and
if there is anything I can do for the young fellow—I have some little
influence, I am told, with the Government——”
“Thank your lordship. Let us act upon your former suggestion, and not
talk about it. Richard Tallant is no longer my son.”
There was something so calm and determined in the merchant’s manner,
that Lord Verner did not attempt to say any more on the subject.
“‘A fellow feeling makes one wondrous kind,’ you know,” he said by-
and-by. “My brother Lionel Hammerton, like everybody else, has been
drawn into considerable speculations, and, what is more, he has led me into
the popular folly. Finance is a splendid game for those who understand it,
no doubt; but it is worse than the turf to a novice. My steward informs me
that I have five hundred shares in the Oriental Bank, one hundred in the
Mardike Mines, and five hundred in the Bank of Finance. There are calls
due upon the whole of them, and two are to be wound up in Chancery. What
shall I do in the matter?”
“Pay the calls, and be prepared to pay up the whole of the Finance and
Mining shares, and expect no return,” said Mr. Tallant. “The Orientals may
come right, and will come right if the shareholders and directors do not
succumb to the bears on the Stock Exchange.”
“Hammerton holds similar shares: the same advice will apply with regard
to those?”
“Yes, your lordship; you have nothing to do but pay.”
“Thank you. I knew I should get clear and straightforward advice from
you, Mr. Tallant. I have already occupied your time too long, and I see you
are busy. I will shake hands with Miss Tallant, and take my leave.”
Mr. Tallant made no reply, but rose, and conducting his lordship to the
drawing-room, bade him good-morning.
 In the drawing-room Earl Verner found Miss Tallant and Miss Somerton.
The former he had seen once before, the latter he now saw for the first time.
Phœbe was attired in her ordinary morning style, and looked fresh and
blooming as a rose, but with just a trace of languor in her manner which did
not usually characterise it. Amy had astonished her friend immensely, only
ten minutes previously, by suddenly entering the room in a favourite
delicate white merino, and with unusual signs of care manifested in her
toilette. Her appearance was worthy of that of a duchess. She looked like a
queen in her own right. Her head never looked nobler; the graceful curves
about her mouth and chin seemed to be full of sunshine and happiness; her
eyes sparkled with unwonted brilliancy, and when Lord Verner entered he
found it difficult to remove his eyes from the lady’s face.
“Pray, present me to your friend,” he said, after he had shaken hands with
Miss Tallant, and without waiting to give Phœbe the voluntary opportunity
of doing so.
Miss Tallant presented Amy accordingly, and his lordship was not
displeased to see how sensibly his rank affected her. His rank? Might not
his appearance have something to do with that faint blush and unmistakable
embarrassment? The thought flashed through his lordship’s mind in an
instant, and it flattered him. He grew quite affable, and insisted, in his grand
way, upon sitting down and having a little chat.
“I am sorry,” he said to Miss Tallant, “to see your father so sensibly
affected by late events; it really grieves me to the heart—such a fine
business gentleman as he was, so full of energy and resource. I must call
again and see him. I fear he is moping. You must cheer him up, Miss
Somerton, you must bring your high spirits to bear upon the poor
gentleman; he is quite downcast.”
“I fear we had best not interfere with him just now, your lordship; there
are troubles which are better nursed and thought over. I hope Mr. Tallant
will soon be well again,” said Amy, sweetly.
“Trouble ought to be quickly dispersed with such companionship as Mr.
Tallant has in his daughter and yourself,” said Lord Verner, bent on paying
Amy a compliment in return for her gracious looks.
 “I fear me we scarcely understand all Mr. Tallant’s troubles just now, and
perhaps he does not understand our sympathy and desire to console him.
Your lordship is pleased to be complimentary; but there is little of woman’s
society at Montem Castle, I have always heard, or you would understand
how easy it may be to tire of it.”
“Ah, there you hit me, Miss Somerton; now really that is cruel. Because I
am deserted by the ladies, because I am a mopish, cross-grained, old
bachelor, you think I am a fitting target for your sarcasm. Well, well, be it
so. At least I have not to bear any woman’s taunts and jests at my own
hearth. Ha! ha!—there, there—I think that is one to me. Don’t you think so,
Miss Tallant?” and his lordship laughed merrily at his own jocularity.
Phœbe smiled a little sadly, and with a puzzled look at Amy, who gave
her no opportunity to reply, but raising her hand slightly to give point to her
words, she said:—
“No, and your lordship has no woman’s sweet smiles at your fireside
either, no chatty sympathising companion in pretty dresses to walk by your
side, and talk to you about all manner of things in which you are interested;
no cheery, pleasant womanly face at the head of your table making
everything brighter about you. There—is not that one to me, as your
lordship puts it?”
Amy smiled so coquettishly, and looked so much all that she had
described, that his lordship soon found himself in an exuberance of spirits.
“Ah, I am no match for you; it is easy to see that you have lived in the
world, Miss Somerton. Your Belgravian guns are too many for our poor
little pop-guns in the country, eh, Miss Tallant?” said his lordship.
“Miss Somerton has lived in the country all her life,” said Phœbe.
“You surprise me,” said the Earl.
“And should never desire, I think, to live anywhere else,” said Amy. “On
the whole I think a country life by far the happiest, and the most
independent.”
“Indeed, I think so too,” said his lordship. “There is a certain amount of
solitude in a comparatively retired country life, which allows the greatest
scope for freedom of thought, and for manners and opinions.”
 “In what is called society, you sacrifice your liberty, you lose your own
individuality,” said Amy, taking up the theme in a manner that she knew
would be highly pleasing to Lord Verner, for she had an ample knowledge
of his whims and peculiarities, and she was bent upon playing her new part
in the most effective manner possible.
“Hear, hear!—admirably well illustrated!” said Earl Verner. “In the
country one is not bored with all the trumpery little gossip of town. The
news gets fairly sifted before it reaches us, as Gibbon, I think, somewhere
says. We are the lookers-on, and we can rest or give up when we cease to be
interested. In society, as you say, we are mixed up in the throng, we are part
of all that is going on, we must be interested in all the frivolous nonsense.
O, no, nothing like the country, and especially when you can occupy the
mind.”
From this topic, in which Phœbe took great interest, the Earl glided into
more lively subjects, and talked of pictures and new books; and he was
surprised at the smartness and learning evinced in some of Miss Somerton’s
replies. She seemed to know a little of everything, and to express herself
with such charming deference to his lordship’s greater wisdom, that Earl
Verner was quite delighted. He was not bored a bit; he had never before
been in the society of women, who knew anything about books, without
being bored; he hated women who were at all clever as a rule; but there was
an unaffected modesty, a charming naïveté about this lady’s manner, which
left its fascinating spirit upon Lord Verner long after he had left Barton
Hall. Who could she be, this splendid specimen of common sense and
beauty?
When he had fairly left the house, Miss Somerton made a curtsey to
herself in a mirror, and said, “Très bonne, Mademoiselle, your acting is
really most natural.”
Then turning round upon Phœbe, who was gazing at her friend with an
expression of the most profound astonishment, she said:—
“Pray forgive me, Miss Tallant; you won’t cast me off for trying to
outshine you this morning? You will not show me the door because I am
only a bailiff’s daughter, and not rich?”
 Amy’s sarcasm astonished Phœbe more than her previously extraordinary
manner had done, and she could only think that poor Amy was not quite
right in her mind.
“You surely cannot be in your right senses, Amy?” said Miss Tallant.
“Oh yes I am, dear. I was a poor foolish creature once; but I am going to
appear in a new character in future. I will tell you all about it, like a dutiful
companion and bailiff’s daughter, if you will not denounce me.”
“I fail to understand you, Amy,” said Phœbe, a little piqued at this
undeserved reference to their relative positions.
Any further explanation on Amy’s part was prevented at that time by an
unexpected message from the farm. Mrs. Somerton was seriously ill, and
Luke had sent for his daughter, who went hurriedly to the bedroom which
was set apart for her at the Hall, changed her dress, and obeyed her father’s
summons.
Mrs. Somerton had been ailing for several days. The shock which she
had sustained by the news of her son’s imprisonment had been but little
relieved by the intelligence of his release. She had persisted in thinking that
his life was ruined. The taint of dishonesty, though it had only attached to
him in imagination, was upon him. He could not hope, she thought, to make
a name after that. Everything, she said, went wrong with them, and she was
well punished. This had been the substance of her talk half the night when
she should have been asleep, and in the morning, whilst Amy was acting
her new part before Lord Verner, she had fallen from her chair, and her
husband had carried her to bed.
When Amy appeared at her bedside, the mother turned her head away
sobbing and weeping.
“I’m very ill, Amy,” she said, by-and-by, “very ill. The longest day will
come to an end at last. I hope the doctor will be here soon.”
“Dear mother, you must not give way so,” Amy said, kissing her
forehead. “What shall I get for you?”
“Nothing, nothing. There’s no salve for sores of the mind, my girl,”
replied the sick woman. “Let me have a doctor soon,” and then she closed
her eyes.
 It happened that Luke’s messenger to Avonworth met the doctor at the
cross roads, returning from Berne; and he came therefore soon after Amy
entered the room. Her mother looked at him eagerly as the doctor felt her
pulse.
“Is there any danger, doctor?” she asked earnestly; “shall I die? pray do
not deceive me. I am not a young woman, and don’t expect to live longer
than my time; but do tell me if it has come?”
“There is no danger, I assure you,” said the doctor. “You have been
excited lately, by some trouble perhaps—that affair of your son’s, which has
come all right, I am glad to hear. Your greatest want is quiet and repose.
You must not alarm or excite yourself: you will soon be better.”
Amy and her father followed the doctor down-stairs to obtain a
verification of this statement; and as they left her, Mrs. Somerton repeated
slowly to herself, “quiet and repose.”
 CHAPTER II.
CONTAINS IMPORTANT REVELATIONS, AND
TERMINATES FATALLY.

The next day Mrs. Somerton grew worse, and in the afternoon she
insisted that she was dying. The doctor, on the contrary, insisted that she
was not doing anything of the sort.
In the afternoon she expressed a strong desire to see Mr. Christopher
Tallant.
“I must see him, Luke. There is something which he should know before
I die—something of the greatest importance to others besides himself. Do,
pray, send for him. It does not matter what yon senseless doctor says; I can
feel I am dying, and I durst not die without seeing Mr. Tallant.”
So Luke communicated this strange intelligence to Mr. Tallant, and that
gentleman proceeded at once to the farm.
“Oh, how ill you look, sir; how much you are changed,” said the sick
woman, when Mr. Tallant appeared.
Mr. Tallant paid no heed to the remark, but sat down upon the nearest
chair, and asked what she had to say to him.
“I am dying, sir, I am dying,” said Mrs. Somerton.
“I hope not,” said Mr. Tallant; “you look ill and excited, but not like
dying.”
“They all say that,” she replied; “but sometimes the patient knows more
than the doctors. Luke and Amy, will you leave me with Mr. Tallant; I have
something to say to him. You will know of it hereafter, but don’t stand by
and hear me confess my own wickedness. I am going to confess in time for
a great wrong to be remedied—that is something in the way of atonement.”
Mr. Somerton and his daughter exchanged looks of blank astonishment,
and left the room.
 “Yes, yes, that is some comfort. There’s little good exposing a wrong
when it cannot be remedied,” the sick woman went on, as if communing
with herself. “The very thought does me good; I shall feel easier when the
load is off my mind.”
“What is this secret, Sarah?” Mr. Tallant asked, and his thoughts
wandered back to the time when she acted as his housekeeper; the sound of
her Christian name coming from his own mouth seemed like the revival of
an old memory.
“Are they gone?” she asked.
“Yes,” said the merchant; “do not delay; I have business letters of
importance to write for post.”
“You would not think I was a very ambitious woman, Mr. Tallant; it is
true, nevertheless. I was vain and full of being great when I was a girl, and
all my life long I seem to have been going backwards instead of onwards.
Nothing has come about as I expected.”
“We have all our disappointments,” said Mr. Tallant, dryly; “I hope you
are not going to recount all yours.”
“How hard you are, sir; how little you seem moved by my wretched
position. Have you no fears concerning this confession I am about to
make?”
“None,” said the merchant; “my troubles are about over. You can’t hit me
any harder than I have been hit already, whatever you may have to tell.”
“You remember your second wife,” went on the woman, half raising
herself in bed; “you remember her dark eyes, and her graceful, ladylike
form. You remember how she wore her dark hair, and how musical her
voice was?”
The merchant did remember. The loss of this woman had been the
saddest episode in his life.
“Have you never seen any one like her?” the sick woman asked, looking
steadfastly at him.
“Never,” he replied; “but why all this mystery?—go straight to the point,
my dear woman, at once, or I must leave you.”
 “I have not much more to say. I thought your own fatherly instinct would
have assisted me. Do you remember that you left me in charge of your child
after Mrs. Tallant’s death? You were so stricken with grief that you never
saw the child but once; and when the poor lady was buried you travelled on
the Continent for more than six months. I had an infant two months old
when your child was born. You left your house and child in my care. I was
to do everything that was right and proper under the circumstances. Do you
remember?”
The woman grew very much excited, and would not be content with Mr.
Tallant’s solemn nod in the affirmative.
“Do you remember?” she repeated.
“I do,” he said.
“Do you remember, when you returned home, that you came of your own
accord and asked to see the child, and how you called it Phœbe, after its
mother—do you remember?”
“Yes, most assuredly,” said the merchant.
“That child was my own child. I changed them before you had been gone
a month.”
Here she paused to see what effect the revelation had upon her hearer.
But she could glean nothing from Mr. Tallant’s solemn, passive face.
“Amy Somerton is your daughter, and the young lady called Phœbe
Tallant is mine.”
She went on—“And now I can die in peace. It was all ambition. I thought
to be somebody through the means of my child; it was not all for her own
sake that I did it. I thought of it night and day before I did it—night and day,
and day and night, and I changed my mind many a time, until at last Luke,
my husband, became accustomed to the new face, and then I could not go
back from my purpose. And yet all my plans fail, everything goes wrong,
and this secret has burnt into my life like a red-hot coal, until I am dying of
it—dying of it.”
Then she sank back exhausted, and the merchant sat by with his eyes
fixed upon her face, but without making the slightest effort to give her any
assistance. He was a good deal stunned by the woman’s revelation; but if all